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Killing suspect shot dead (Commits Suicide with .45 after SWAT Team Fires 31 Rounds)
Corpus Christi Caller Times ^ | February 13, 2003 | Mike Baird and Jaime Powell

Posted on 02/13/2003 8:33:11 PM PST by Paleo Conservative

Killing suspect shot dead

Boy, 15, is suspected accomplice to ex-convict

By Mike Baird and Jaime Powell Caller-Times
February 13, 2003

Corpus Christi police have a dead gunman and the answers they needed to solve four killings.

Now, the urgent question for them, the FBI and other law enforcement authorities between here and New York City is: How many more dead victims there might be.

Police know that the gunman, a 34-year-old ex-convict named Donald Wilcox, met a 15-year-old boy on a bus trip from New York City. The boy, a suspected accomplice, may face trial as an adult.

But they don't know what route Wilcox and the boy took to Corpus Christi, where local residents Weldon and Charlotte Parker and Louis Mokry, and Oklahoma resident Luther Butler were shot dead within a week. Nor did police know late Wednesday if anyone else died along the way.


Timeline

  • Feb. 11, 1:01 p.m.: The bodies of Weldon and Charlotte Parker are located in the brush off Carbon Plant Road, shot to death.

  • Feb. 11, about 9:30 p.m.: Police were informed that ballistic tests link the Parker and Louis Mokry shootings.

  • Feb. 11, about 11:11 p.m.: A 15-year-old white male is taken into custody in reference to the Parker homicides. He was subsequently booked into the Nueces County Juvenile Justice Center for capital murder.

  • Feb. 12, about midnight.: Information was received as to the location of the adult male suspect at the Padre Motel, 9401 S. Padre Island Drive, resulting in surveillance being established.

  • Feb. 12, about 2:12 a.m.: The police department SWAT officers began the process of serving the arrest warrant when the adult male suspect exited room 154 at the Padre Motel armed with a semi-automatic handgun.

  • While conducting the follow-up investigation surrounding this incident, fresh blood was discovered in the front seat of a vehicle with out-of-state license plates. Upon checking the trunk of the vehicle, the body of an 87-year-old white male was discovered shot to death.

  • The semi-automatic handgun discovered at the scene used by the adult male suspect may possibly be the same weapon used to kill the 87-year-old male, but ballistic tests have not confirmed this at this time.

SWAT members shoot

At 2:12 a.m. Wednesday, four police SWAT team members shot Wilcox outside the room he had rented at the Padre Motel in Flour Bluff. As Wilcox fell to the ground, police said, it appeared to them that he shot himself in the face with a .45-caliber pistol.

Police aren't sure which shots killed Wilcox. An autopsy will determine which bullets resulted in his death.

The same caliber gun was used to kill the Parkers and Mokry, police said. They didn't know Wednesday if the same caliber had been used to shoot Butler.

A .45-caliber pistol was stolen from the Parkers' residence in a burglary, police said, but they didn't know if the gun in Wilcox's hand as he died belonged to the Parkers.

Police described the slayings as being apparently robbery-motivated, with older people as the targets. Butler was 87, Weldon Parker was 79, Charlotte Parker was 77 and Mokry was 61.

The steps police took

Police followed these chronological steps to the Padre Motel:



TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Government; US: New York; US: Pennsylvania; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: corpuschristi; murder; serialkiller; spreekiller
I'm somewhat surprised none of the national news networks has picked up this story yet. The murderer was from Pennsylvania, travelled from New York, and killed four people in the Corpus Christi, Texas area since last week. The FBI is investigating whether there are victims in other states.
1 posted on 02/13/2003 8:33:11 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
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To: MeeknMing; David Hunter

Ping!


2 posted on 02/13/2003 8:36:41 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
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To: Paleo Conservative
Police know that the gunman, a 34-year-old ex-convict named Donald Wilcox, met a 15-year-old boy on a bus trip from New York City. The boy, a suspected accomplice, may face trial as an adult.

First I've heard of this ..

3 posted on 02/13/2003 8:47:38 PM PST by Mo1 (I HATE The Party of Clinton!)
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To: Mo1
First I've heard of this ..

The national news media tend to ignore stories originating in flyover country.

4 posted on 02/13/2003 8:50:02 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
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To: Paleo Conservative
The national news media tend to ignore stories originating in flyover country.

Unless it puts Bush or Republicans in a bad light.

5 posted on 02/13/2003 8:59:35 PM PST by coloradan
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To: Paleo Conservative
I haven't heard a word about this, between the war and estrada nomination I guess there's no other news.
6 posted on 02/13/2003 9:06:00 PM PST by jdontom (BacktheBadge)
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To: Paleo Conservative
They initially didn't rule out suicide, but found it odd that they couldn't find a gun.

With such sharp minds it is no wonder they solved this case so quickly.

7 posted on 02/13/2003 9:09:24 PM PST by Mind-numbed Robot
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To: Paleo Conservative; 666beast; Geezerette
That's one less client for a NYU lawyer to defend.
8 posted on 02/13/2003 9:16:27 PM PST by BUSHdude2000
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To: Paleo Conservative
Well the guy that just out of the Pennsylvania prison recently won't be doing any more damage, and spared us 10 years of supporting him to the needle. Too bad for the murders along the trail, though. Ouch !

But it looks like now we Texans have a lifer to support in Huntsville or somewhere because of him...

Valdez said he would pursue capital murder charges but would not be able to pursue the death penalty because the boy's age prohibits it.

9 posted on 02/14/2003 5:33:25 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Bu-bye SADdam. You're soon to meet your buddy Stalin in Hades.)
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To: coloradan
Unless it puts Bush or Republicans in a bad light.

Isn't that the truth !?...

10 posted on 02/14/2003 5:46:19 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Bu-bye SADdam. You're soon to meet your buddy Stalin in Hades.)
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To: Mind-numbed Robot
They initially didn't rule out suicide, but found it odd that they couldn't find a gun.

Strange things like this happened to 'friends' of the clintons all the time.

11 posted on 02/14/2003 6:29:27 AM PST by barker
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To: barker
LBJ and gang had a little of this going on also. A West Texas man, a Dept. of Agriculture agent who was onto the Billie Saul Estes phantom grain siloes ploy, supposedly committed suicide out in the brush by shooting himself six times with a bolt action rifle. It wasn't until years later that they decided that it may have been a homocide.
12 posted on 02/14/2003 6:47:53 AM PST by Mind-numbed Robot
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To: Mind-numbed Robot
...committed suicide out in the brush by shooting himself six times with a bolt action rifle...

I kept telling people Bill Clinton was LBJ with 20 more IQ points. And we still have one of the slimiest LBJ leftovers heading the MPAA lobbying for Big Brother inside our PCs. Evil, evil people.

13 posted on 02/14/2003 7:15:13 AM PST by eno_
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